1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a large-capacity digital multifunctional apparatus and a data terminal apparatus connected therewith, specifically the digital multifunctional apparatus can register documents and equipped with a document managing system to control the registered documents, that registered documents is created by the data terminal apparatus and transferred to the digital multifunctional apparatus by online.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a digital multifunctional apparatus has been developed, which implements copier, printer and facsimile, etc. with a single apparatus, and furthermore a digital multifunctional apparatus incorporating a large-capacity memory to have a document managing system is also being provided.
A conventional digital multifunctional apparatus performs document managing as shown below. When a document is registered in the digital multifunctional apparatus, a scanner of the digital multifunctional apparatus scans the document sheet and stores the scanned image (herein after called document) in a predetermined area of memory. Then, the digital multifunctional apparatus creates an identification code to identify the registered document and managing information on the registered document and creates a document file for management(herein after called managing document) by combining this identification code and part of the registered document. The digital multifunctional apparatus prints the managing document. The user uses the printed managing document sheet for a search later.
Thus, the digital multifunctional apparatus allows the user to complete a document registration operation by only carrying out a scanning operation similar to a normal copy operation for a document to be registered, without requiring the user to perform special operations such as keyword entries.
When searching a desired document, the scanner of the digital multifunctional apparatus scans the managing document sheet which has been printed out when the document was registered. Then, an identification code is extracted from the scanned image of the managing document sheet and the document corresponding to the extracted identification code is searched and picked up from registered documents.
Thus, it is extremely simple to pick up the desired document; the user only needs to have the digital multifunctional apparatus scan the managing document sheet and the user need not perform any special operations such as keyword entries.
On the other hand, with the spread of data terminal apparatuses like personal computers (hereinafter referred to as xe2x80x9cPCxe2x80x9d), many documents are being created on a PC. When a document created on a PC is stored in memory such as a hard disk, it is often the case that a document folder is created and the document is managed as a registered document by the PC.
However, such a prior art does not allow the user to see a document registered in the digital multifunctional apparatus on a display of the PC or register a document created by the PC in the digital multifunctional apparatus. This is because the digital multifunctional apparatus carries out document management according to its own document managing system, while the PC also carries out document management according to its own document managing system, and so it is totally impossible to establish cooperation between these two. As a result, a document registered in the digital multifunctional apparatus cannot be acquired unless it is output from the recording section of the digital multifunctional apparatus, or a document created by the PC cannot be seen except on the display of the PC. This results in an inefficient system when the digital multifunctional apparatus and PC are viewed combined.
Here, adopting a separate document managing system common to the digital multifunctional apparatus and PC could solve the above problem. However, this will result in increased burden on the user because this requires the user to re-register all documents controlled according to the existing document managing system. Moreover, there are a variety of document managing systems used by digital multifunctional apparatus and PC and it is practically difficult to adopt a document management system common to all those systems.
Furthermore, since a PC has a higher-level of general purposeness than a digital multifunctional apparatus, it is possible for the PC side to adopt the document managing system of the digital multifunctional apparatus and use that system as the common system. However, compared to the PC, which is mainly based on keyboard entries, the digital multifunctional apparatus has more limited key entries and in this way it often adopts a special document managing system. Therefore, if the document managing system of the digital multifunctional apparatus is adopted to the PC, the PC is forced to follow a document managing system less convenient than its original document managing system, making the system not so easy-to-use.
The present invention has been implemented taking into account the points described above and it is an object of the present invention to provide a digital multifunctional apparatus and a data terminal apparatus connected therewith, each apparatus having its own document managing system, that allow the user to see a document registered by the digital multifunctional apparatus on the data terminal apparatus or register a document created by the data terminal apparatus in the digital multifunctional apparatus, without creating additional burden on the user or without deteriorating ease of use.
With the present invention, when a document is registered from the data terminal apparatus to the digital multifunctional apparatus, the digital multifunctional apparatus transfers a document code of a document used for document management information to the data terminal apparatus. The data terminal apparatus links the document managing information set by the user or machine with the document code of the document transferred from the digital multifunctional apparatus. When the data terminal apparatus requests the digital multifunctional apparatus to perform a document search, the data terminal apparatus converts the document managing information input by the user to a linked document code and transfers it to the digital multifunctional apparatus.
This allows the user to register a document in the digital multifunctional apparatus according to the document managing system of the digital multifunctional apparatus by simply specifying an arbitrary document name from the data terminal apparatus. Furthermore, if the user enters an arbitrary document name from the data terminal apparatus, the user can search a desired document in the digital multifunctional apparatus according to the same system as the managing system of the digital multifunctional apparatus.
A first aspect of the present invention is a digital multifunctional apparatus comprising a storage that stores one or more documents, a document managing section that, when registering a document in said storage, creates a document code of said document, outputs a managing document combining an identification mark created based on said document code with the whole or part of said document, when searching a desired document in said storage, analyzes the identification mark included in a scanned image of the managing document, extracts the desired document from said storage used by the analyzed result of the identification mark, and a controller that, when registering a document upon reception from an external data terminal apparatus, transfers a document code generated for the document to said data terminal apparatus.
According to this digital multifunctional apparatus, when receiving a document from an external data terminal apparatus connected via a network and registering the received document, the digital multifunctional apparatus transfers a document code created for the received document to the data terminal apparatus, and in this way the digital multifunctional apparatus can notify the document managing information (document code) that the digital multifunctional apparatus created according to its own document managing system to the data terminal apparatus which requested document registration. If the data terminal apparatus links the document managing information (document code) received from the digital multifunctional apparatus with the document managing information (document name set by the user, etc.) created according to the document managing system specific to the data terminal apparatus, this enables document registration from the data terminal apparatus to the digital multifunctional apparatus using the document name set by the user.
A second aspect of the present invention is a data terminal apparatus comprising a document making system that performs processing according to operator""s inputs to obtain a document, a managing table that registers first document managing information to identify said created document, a first controller that, when transferring the document made by said document making system to an external digital multifunctional apparatus for registering the document, transfers said document to the digital multifunctional apparatus and acquires second document managing information created independently by said digital multifunctional apparatus, and a second controller that manages said first document managing information and said second document managing information by linking them each other.
According to this data terminal apparatus, when the document is transferred to the external digital multifunctional apparatus and registered, the data terminal apparatus acquires the second document managing information (document code) created by the digital multifunctional apparatus and manages the first document managing information (document name set by the user, etc.) created according to the managing system of the data terminal apparatus and the second document managing information created according to the managing system of the digital multifunctional apparatus by linking them each other, enabling document registration from the data terminal apparatus to the digital multifunctional apparatus using the document name set by the user.
A third aspect of the present invention is a digital multifunctional apparatus comprising a storage that stores one or more documents, a document managing section that creates, when registering a document, a document code of the document to be registered, outputs a managing document combining an identification mark created based on the document code with the whole or part of the document, and when searching desired document, scans the managing document and analyzes the identification mark included in the scanned image of the managing document and extracts the corresponding document from the storage, and a control section that transfers, when receiving and registering a document from an external data terminal apparatus, a document code created for the document to the data terminal apparatus and receives, when searching a document at the request of the external data terminal apparatus, the same document code as the document code created by the document managing section from the data terminal apparatus and searches the desired document based on this document code.
According to this digital multifunctional apparatus, when searching a registered document at the request of the external data terminal apparatus, the digital multifunctional apparatus receives the same document code as the document code created by the document managing section from the data terminal apparatus, and in this way can search the document according to the document managing system of the digital multifunctional apparatus.
A fourth aspect of the present invention is a data terminal apparatus comprising a document making system that performs processing according to operator""s inputs to obtain a document, a managing table that registers first document managing information to identify said created document, a first controller that, when transferring the document made by said document making system to an external digital multifunctional apparatus for registering the document, transfers said document to the digital multifunctional apparatus and acquires second document managing information created independently by said digital multifunctional apparatus, and a second controller that manages said first document managing information and said second document managing information by linking them each other, and a control section that, when searching a document registered in the digital multifunctional apparatus, receives the first document managing information corresponding to a desired document from the user, searches the corresponding second document managing information from the control table and transfers the corresponding second document managing information to the digital multifunctional apparatus.
According to this data terminal apparatus, when the user searches a registered document in the digital multifunctional apparatus from the data terminal apparatus via a network, if the user specifies a desired document using the first document managing information named by the user or the first document managing information named by the data terminal apparatus, instead of the second document managing information named by the digital multifunctional apparatus on the data terminal apparatus, the data terminal apparatus automatically searches the second document managing information corresponding to this first document managing information and sends the second document managing information to the digital multifunctional apparatus, and in this way only the second document managing information is exchanged between the data terminal apparatus and the digital multifunctional apparatus, allowing the digital multifunctional apparatus to search a desired document based on the second document managing information added by itself.
Thus, when searching a registered document in the digital multifunctional apparatus from the data terminal apparatus, if the user specifies a desired document based on the first document managing information named by the user on the data terminal apparatus or named by the data terminal apparatus, then the user can search the desired document in the digital multifunctional apparatus without knowing the second document managing information.
In addition, the present invention of this aspect can minimize the amount of information communication of the document managing information when searching a registered document in the digital multifunctional apparatus from the data terminal apparatus, thus improving the system efficiency. Moreover, the user can freely enter keywords such as a document name on the data terminal apparatus regardless of the managing system of the multifunctional apparatus in which the document is registered and without constraints of restrictions on key entries of the digital multifunctional apparatus, facilitating user convenience.